EDITOR’S NOTE: Today, by tradition, we close our series of stories on this year’s Sidney F. Smith Toy Fund campaign with a bit of verse. Hurtling toward Christmas, we try to avoid the Scrooges and the Grinches; Within ourselves, we try to ignite the Glindas and Atticus Finches. On Christmas Eve, we settle down and revel in the myth That …

NORTHAMPTON — The way Paula Cialek sees it, “Christmas is for kids.” Cialek, who collects donations from co-workers at L-3 KEO (formerly Kollmorgen) for the Gazette’s Sidney F. Smith Toy Fund, starts sending out emails in late November “and the money just starts flowing in,” she said. This year, the nearly 300 employees of the optical systems company ponied up for a donation …

NORTHAMPTON — Very often, donations to the Sidney F. Smith Toy Fund arrive in memory of people whose loved ones miss them deeply. Sometimes the losses are so fresh, sadness permeates the notes they write. The grief is almost audible in conversations with them. Ten days before the first anniversary of the death …